U.S. wary of what's next for Egypt

Amid all the turmoil and diplomatic lingo surrounding Egypt, the growing certainty of a major change in its government is sharpening the question: what comes next?

No one knows for sure but there are plenty of possibilities — and few of them will make life easy for the United States in the short term.

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They run the gamut from a newly empowered democratic middle that steers the nation away from dictatorship, to the worst-case scenario for the U.S. — a sort of Iran II, an Islamic government hostile to the United States, and likely to break Egypt’s historic peace treaty with Israel.

As of Sunday night in Egypt, the once-diffuse protest movement showed signs of coalescing behind a former nuclear negotiator, Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei. He’s a familiar figure to the West — reassuring even, viewed as secular and moderate — but even he has been critical of President Barack Obama’s refusal to ask Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to stand aside.

Yet Mubarak’s tenure is now almost universally seen as nearing an end. Mubarak has been friendly to the U.S. and friendly enough toward Israel but hard on his own people, who’ve taken to the streets to throw off 30 years of his dictatorial rule.

Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton worked Sunday to modulate their messages to Mubarak, the Egyptian opposition and other regional leaders — but with the unmistakable takeaway that a transition in the Egyptian government is needed, with Mubarak if possible but without him if necessary.

Clinton suggested that Mubarak could preside over a transition to free elections — a view not shared by many experts in the region — while Obama told allies that the U.S. supports “an orderly transition to a government that is responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people.”

The Americans “are trying to use the strongest possible words while allowing Mubarak to make his own graceful exit,” said Andrew Albertson, an Egypt expert at the Truman National Security Project. “If they push, if they say we want Mubarak gone, then [Saudi] King Abdullah gets upset, and other leaders in the region, questioning why the U.S. is treating an ally that way. They have two audiences: Mubarak and other Arab leaders and valuable allies, and secondly the Egyptian people. They are trying to navigate between the two.”

But ElBaradei — a sharp thorn in President George W. Bush’s side when he sought to undercut American claims, later discredited, of Iraqi nuclear weapons – told CNN Sunday that the time had come for Obama to speak out more clearly.

“It is better for President Obama not to appear that he is the last one to say to President Mubarak, ‘It’s time for you to go,’” he told CNN.